After “surviving” for a year, CBT Holidays, a Sydney-based travel agency, is hoping that China’s reopening of its borders will boost Australia’s tourism industry.
In 2020, when Australia and China both closed their borders in response to the introduction of COVID-19, the tour operator lost access to its largest market. Due to a shortage of consumers, CBT Holidays, which specializes in package tours to China, stopped operating entirely for the majority of 2021.
Despite the fact that Australia will once again be available to tourists in February 2022 and despite the efforts of many tour operators to shift their focus to domestic travel, activity in the sector as a whole stagnated in 2017.
Chinese tourists to Australia decreased by more than 95% from the 1.43 million who came in 2019 while Australians were still barred from entering China.
According to Eric Wong, product manager at CBT Holidays, “initially, we obtained some compensation from [the] Australia government and New South Wales government till roughly one and a half years ago.”
“And [then] we simply closed the company down.”
For the first time in three years, millions of Chinese are anticipated to travel abroad as of Sunday, including tourists, students, and business travelers. One such destination is Australia.
The proprietor of CBT Holidays, Jimmy L, told the media, asking to be called to by his first name and a first letter of his last name, “[It’s] wonderful news, the Chinese border is open.”
More likely than not, business will come… then we can turn a profit once more.
Nevertheless, he is unsure of how long it will take for business to recover, in part due to the scarcity of flights into and out of China and the prohibitively high cost of tickets.
For instance, the price of a round-trip flight to China in the past was approximately $1,000 AUD ($688). And right now, for the economy, [it’s] 8,000, 9,000 [Australian dollars] ($5,500, $6,200),” he remarked.
Sun, the managing director of China Travel Service, a Sydney-based company that specializes in travel to China, concurred.
Sun, who requested to be referred just by his last name, said that there are currently only “a couple of flights” from China to Australia, each carrying only a small number of passengers.
Australia’s primary airline, Qantas, has not yet made an announcement about the resumed operation of routes to China, despite Chinese carriers expanding the number of flights to and from Australia.
“I believe that will alter significantly as the airlines expand their flight schedule… The exchange of individuals between these two nations would likely increase over time until gradually returning to normal, according to Sun.
Despite Chinese visitors making up 12.3 billion Australian dollars ($8.5 billion), or one-third of all tourist spending prior to the pandemic, the Australian government has not taken many steps to promote travel between China and Australia.
Australia declared on New Year’s Day that travelers from China, including Hong Kong and Macau, would need to present a negative COVID-19 test result before to travel because to concerns that the country’s escalating incidence of the virus could give rise to new and more dangerous versions.
The Australian government made the announcements, which came after similar actions by nations such as India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, despite the country’s chief medical officer’s recommendation that no new travel restrictions were required.
Beijing has denounced the actions, saying that any COVID-19 control strategy must be “proportionate” and “science-based,” and cannot interfere with “regular travel and people-to-people interchange and cooperation.”
Sun claimed he is not very concerned that the tests will prohibit or deter some Chinese from traveling to Australia.
“I believe that’s okay… That is totally sensible, he said. “Even today, a 48-hour COVID test is still required for Australians or Australians who are Chinese to visit China. It is identical.
He continued, “I also think we need time because the policies can change.
But according to Sun, there is still much to be done to entice Chinese people to migrate back to Australia in large numbers.
To establish a fresh product for the Chinese inbound clients, he added, “We still need to [re]connect with those hotels and those attractions, then get the new equipment and new contracts.”
It will take some time for us to get ready since we also need to get back in touch with the Chinese travel companies to develop the package tour offering for Australians traveling to China.
At the same time, Sun claimed that he has discovered from experience that his company must keep growing outside of China in order to secure its future.
He added that CTS has already started to grow, saying, “We can’t put all the eggs in one basket.
Companies like CTS are anxiously awaiting the return of Chinese tourists in the interim.
Even though Sun claimed he had anticipated China will eventually open its borders, he did not anticipate it to happen so quickly.
Because of this, everyone is thrilled when they hear the news, especially those in this industry, he said. “We’re quite happy. It’s encouraging news.
